Page 71 - ECOlogic Book

defending their young or driven by hunger. Wild animals, when not
stressed, spend many hours each day, just sitting or standing
contemplatively.

Yet passion is also an aspect of this wild fierceness, and it is in this quiet
passion that the sacred is encountered. Brian Swimme calls it the emotional
force which connects the part to the whole, a reconnecting of that which has
been broken off from or has fallen away from its emotional bond with the
universe.

“These profound feelings are not just ours,” says Swimme. “They are the
universe reflecting on itself – to live fully is to enter this beauty, surrounded
by enchantment, summoned by magnificence.”

Orenda, Spirit, Creative Fire, is the same inner power that exists in all life
forms. It’s ultimately mysterious and carries the possibility of the re-
enchantment of the world.

It’s this connecting energy that is weaving the world back together again
and it is the very essence of the Ecozoic Era we’re creating. It’s the breath
and pulse of the Creator moving in us and through us. It’s always there,
whether or not we recognize it, just as beauty is continually being performed
even when we do not see it. Like fire, it can warm us and light the path
before us.

And, like fire, when it is repressed or diverted it can be destructive.
Outbreaks of violence can often be traced to creativity which has not been
allowed to express. This is the shadow side of the creative fire. Because the
creative spirit is so powerful, the industrial age has created tragedy through
its manipulation of it, and its failure to recognize the universal connection.

Arrogance is the shadow side of passion. Passion which is not deeply
connected to the universe can turn into fanaticism: the creativity of the part
which is not connected to the whole can cause damage to the whole, as we
are now so clearly seeing.

“We cripple our sensitivity by thinking we are separate selves that “have
images of the moon, or whatever, and by assuming that our feelings are just
our feelings,” says Swimme. He continues, “Do you see the mistake here?
The human awareness could never know that throbbing presence of the
moon and all the intensity of feelings were it not for the moon itself. These
feelings are as much the creation of the moon as they are of the human.

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